


All I Ask

by writingonpostcards



Series: Tumblr Ficlets - Check, Please! [11]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Love Confessions, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-09
Updated: 2017-11-09
Packaged: 2019-01-31 03:33:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12673551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writingonpostcards/pseuds/writingonpostcards
Summary: A canon-divergence fromKiss The Icewhere Jack and Bitty sort their feelings out a little bit sooner.





	All I Ask

**Author's Note:**

> based on the Adele song of the same name

Bitty watches Jack. He’s normally not so obvious with it, but tonight, knowing it’s the last night that Jack will be here, and with only the stars and a flickering fire to light the group, Bitty lets himself watch.

The orange light does something to Jack’s features, making them almost glow as he smiles and laughs at something Holster says. Jack looks over to Bitty and Bitty laughs along with him, not really sure what he’s laughing about. He keeps drifting in and out of the conversation, his own thoughts too loud.

Jack’s graduating tomorrow. And Shitty, of course, but in Bitty’s heart, Jack’s the one he’s going to miss more. He feels a little bad for thinking it, but he doesn’t have to admit it to anyone but himself.

Bitty pulls his hands further into the sleeves of the jacket Jack lent him, bringing his hands up to rest his head in them. This way, he can smell the traces of Jack on the sleeves. Soap and shampoo.

Ransom and Holster are the first to leave. Bitty nods off slightly against the wall after the volume of conversation drops with their departure. He blinks, and when he opens his eyes again, Jack’s moved himself closer and Bitty’s head rests on his shoulder.

“Sorry,” he whispers to Jack beneath the conversation Lardo and Shitty are having.

Jack looks down at him. “I don’t mind.”

Shitty leaves soon after that moment, and then Lardo, waving Jack and Bitty goodnight.

Bitty looks around the roof; the dying fire, the empty pie pan. He can feel Jack moving beside him, stretching out his legs and crossing them at the ankles.

Bitty blinks again, and doesn’t realise he’s losing out to sleep until he sways without knowing into Jack.

“Sorry, Jack.”

“It’s fine. Here,” Jack moves over and wraps an arm around Bitty’s shoulders.  He looks down into Bitty’s eyes. “Is this alright?” 

Bitty can’t speak. It’s more than alright. It’s like a dream, his dream. Jack’s arms around him, the eye-contact, the honesty of his expression. Bitty nods, then looks away after he feels his cheeks heating, afraid his emotion will be too easily read.

He crosses his arms and sighs out, relaxing against Jack. This might be the only opportunity he gets to do so, because what if he never sees Jack again after tonight? He knows that they’ve talked about staying in contact, but talking and doing are two different things. Bitty’s already lost touch with his high school classmates, and Jack’s heading into the NHL. He’s going to be so busy.

“What are you thinking about?” Jack asks.

“Graduation,” Bitty answers in a partial truth. It’s probably too macabre to tell Jack he’s thinking about how if this the last night he ever spends with Jack, he wants… he wants. Memories. Thousands more. A proper goodbye. Maybe to confess his feelings. A kiss. To just be held for a bit, so he can re-imagine it later on, when Jack’s winning trophies, and Bitty’s somewhere in another state, watching his games and remembering this night, and grasping on to a memory of warm arms and Jack’s lips shining in the night.

“Me too,” Jack admits. “It feels too soon.”

Bitty hums in agreement. It is too soon. He wants another semester, another decade with Jack.

“I feel like I could’ve done more. With class, hockey.” Jack sighs out. “When I start with the Falconers, it’s going to be my whole life for years.”

“But you’ll love it,” Bitty encourages him, trying to support Jack even though he wants to cry at the reality of it. It’s a confirmation that Bitty’s worries are real. That Jack’s going to drift away, give his life to the NHL.

“I know you’ll love it,” Bitty adds. “And I’ll be cheering you on the whole time.”

Jack smiles down at Bitty, and Bitty thinks about what it might mean for him to do that. Cheer Jack on for the next few years even if their friendship slips away. Going to games would probably be too hard. He’d have to watch from his home, wherever that ends up being. He’ll make do.

“Would you change anything?” Bitty asks Jack after the silence stretches too long and Bitty feels his eyelids getting heavier.

“About what?”

“College. Coming to Samwell.”

Jack looks out into the night, and Bitty keeps his eyes on him, committing to memory the shape of his jaw, and the slope of his ear.

“I’d like to have been more confident.”

“You’re plenty confident, Jack. You’re a natural leader, and I know you’ve done well in classes. I—”

Jack shakes his head. “Not that kind of confidence.”

“Then what kind?”

Jack looks away again. Bitty’s not sure if it’s intentional, but his fingers start moving up and down on Bitty’s arm. Bitty shudders at the sensation, and closes his eyes to focus on it better.

“I wish I could say—That I could tell—” Jack sighs out roughly and his fingers stop, tightening instead on Bitty, and bringing his body closer against Jack’s.

Bitty watches as Jack swallows whatever he was going to say.

“This is your last night, Jack.” Bitty sits up, taking himself away from Jack’s body. It’s too hard to have it without it being real right now. He brings himself eye level with Jack, and tries to smile, to be a friend. “You’ve still got time. Now’s your chance.”

Bitty has to tell Jack that, because he’s been telling himself the same thing, and maybe this way, if Jack can follow through with it, Bitty will convince himself to do it too. To just ask Jack for this one night to give him one moment, to make one memory with them, no matter how contrived, because what if…

What if Jack is it for Bitty? The way Jack makes Bitty feel at once in his own skin and bigger than it, how one word, one smile, is enough to brighten his whole day, how he’s never let anyone else see as complete a picture of who he is. Could anyone else he gets a coffee with ever make it feel like something special, not something ordinary. What if Bitty can never find that again. Someone so kind, and so complex, and so beautiful. 

So, he craves that one moment, just in case. Yet he can’t bring himself to ask Jack on his last night here. 

Jack’s expression morphs into something Bitty’s seen only once before, watery eyes and defenses down.

“What if it doesn’t work out?” Jack asks him, a desperate edge to his voice.

“Then it’s your last night.” Bitty shrugs, trying not to let a similar crack slip into his voice. “Then you leave tomorrow and move on.”

Jack stares at Bitty and Bitty stares at Jack. He can hear heavy breathing, and it could be him, but Jack’s chest is rising and falling at the same time too.

“Bits,” Jack says. “Bitty.”

Jack holds Bitty’s gaze and Bitty finds that he can’t break it even to blink. 

The moment stretches and Bitty counts Jack’s breaths. After seventeen cycles, in and out, Jack stands up. He walks over to the edge of the roof, to look across Samwell.

Bitty wants to go over and comfort him, talk him through whatever is going on in his head. He doesn’t think he can manage it without crying. Without sobs wrenching out of him. Without scaring Jack and any chance of a continued friendship away.

He stands up though, and he tries. Because Jack’s fingers are trembling against his legs. Because Jack needs it.

Bitty stops a few paces behind Jack, not wanting to crowd him, but simply offering him company.

“I wish I’d had the confidence to tell you before tonight,” Jack says into the night.

Bitty wonders who he’s talking to. Who out there at Samwell he hasn’t had the confidence to talk to until it’s almost too late.

“I didn’t. I can’t. It’s not fair now.”

Jack’s hands clench into fists and Bitty aches to reach out to him, but he’s got to let Jack finish, have his catharsis so tomorrow he can walk across the stage without regrets.

There’s only so much of Jack’s pain, of Jack’s feelings for another, that Bitty can watch though, so he turns his back and walks away, over to the other side of the roof. He’ll let Jack have his moment in private, and in doing so, he’ll save himself even more heartbreak. He doesn’t have to hear what Jack says. He has worries enough that he won’t make it through graduation without crying. He doesn’t need to think about his hopeless, pointless emotions for a man who clearly has his own feelings for someone else.

Bitty brings Jack’s jacket up to his face again. Here’s his memory, the best he’ll get. Not Jack wrapped around him on a starry night, but his jacket. Not the smell of Jack’s skin, but of his soap. Not the sound of Jack’s laugh, but his own shaky breathing as he tries not to cry.

Bitty’s lost track of how long he’s been waiting for Jack to finish, to tell him he’s going downstairs, maybe thank Bitty for encouraging him. Bitty’s eyes are dry now at least, but his insides are all still tight and uncomfortable.

Bitty feels a hand on his shoulder. He sighs, ready to give Jack his jacket back and head inside for a night of no sleep. He turns around with eyes downcast. Jack’s feet are stopped so the toes of their shoes almost touch, and Bitty can feel his hair brushing Jack’s chest. He tilts his head up, surprised by the closeness.

Bitty watches Jack as his eyes travel over Bitty’s face slowly.

“You told me to take the chance,” Jack says slow, steady. “So, I…”

Jack brings a hand up, oh so carefully, until it’s hovering by Bitty’s face. Bitty stands frozen as his heart slams against his ribcage and then jumps into his throat and swells. He can feel the heat of Jack’s hand and he doesn’t even think before he moves his head so that his cheek rests in Jack’s palm.

Jack brings his other hand up to bracket Bitty’s face. Bitty isn’t sure if the rush of heat is just Jack’s warmth, or his own blood. His heartbeat pounds in his ears and his breathing comes in shallow, insubstantial compared to the presence of Jack’s skin on his own.

Jack opens his mouth and Bitty stops breathing since he can’t tell his heart to stop beating and he wants—needs to hear.

“I want you as more than just a friend.”

Bitty’s whole world flashes for a second as Jack gives him a half-smile. His lips part and his mouth dries and he looks into Jack’s eyes and sees what he hasn’t seen before. He sees what Jack has just told him. He sees the more that Jack wants, the sparkle born of hope, and the softening born of fondness.

Bitty was wrong before. _This_ is his memory. The one he’s going to carry with him into the future, regardless of whether he gets to try it with Jack, and whether they even stay in touch after tomorrow. Bitty gets this admission and Jack’s heart in plain view on his face. It’s better than what he was hoping for.

Jack’s hands start slipping off Bitty’s face, but Bitty grabs them, keeps his hands on Jack’s, still on his cheeks.

“Jack,” he tries to say, only it doesn’t come out, he’s just mouthing the words.

“Jack,” he tries again and it still doesn’t work, it’s just air and feeling.

 _If this is our last night_ , he thinks in his head, _our only night, I want one more memory, I want,_ “a kiss.”

Bitty hears the words come out and he’s too shocked that they did to take them back. He waits for Jack to back away, to say that he doesn’t want anything like that, he’s said his confession and that’s enough.

Then Jack smiles. Jack smiles and Bitty’s heart drops back into place and his insides un-bunch and he grows bigger all in the space of a smile.

Then Jack leans in slowly so that when his lips touch Bitty’s, he’s been expecting it for a lifetime. Jack’s lips are home, and they’re warm. Bitty kisses him back with soft pressure, and even if over time he can’t remember the exact feeling of the plumpness of Jack’s bottom lip, or the exact taste of Jack’s lip balm, he’ll recall that emotion and he’ll be happy.

**Author's Note:**

> originally posted on [tumblr](http://17piesinseptember.tumblr.com/post/157332278241/can-you-pleaseeee-write-an-all-i-ask-by-adele)


End file.
